Need For Speed 4 Modern Patch v0.1.0 [2016/05/11] (Portable)

A patch for the Need For Speed 4: High Stakes. This is a side project of the Need For Speed III Modern Patch. Currently, it has a small amount of fixes. The key features of this patch are portability (no more registry!) and high poly cars support (it is useful for modding). There is still no widescreen resolutions support.

How to install

Copy DATA and SAVEDATA directories from the NFS4 CD to a new empty directory.

Find other NFS4 fans for the network games in our Telegram group chat!

Plans: Milestone 1 (Full Widescreen Support)

Goal: $500.Collected:$864 (the surplus will be moved to the next milestone).Status: suspended.

Mandatory set of features:

Refactoring of the thrash init and get resolutions list code. It have to solve some compatibility problems with D3D renderers.

Widescreen resolutions support for the gameplay. It will be possible to choose it from the graphics settings in a general way.

Proper handling of all aspect ratios (from 5:4 to 16:9, inclusive 4:3 and 16:10). HUD will be adopted automatically for every supported resolution.

Better modding abilities. AllowHugeTextures setting support, which will allow to use textures up to 2048×2048.

Patching of the voodoo2a.dll to add an ability to use widescreen resolutions (a Glide API extension, by default only d3da.dll can use widescreen resolutions).

32bpp support in the voodoo2a.dll (another Glide API extension).

Huge textures support in the voodoo2a.dll (and again, it's also a Glide API extension).

It is planned to release v1.0.0 when these features will be done and they will be stable. I'm planning to include some other nice features into the first release, but the list is not predefined. For example, I'll try to remove effect limitations in the menu for the D3D renderers.

164 Comments

Guys, let's switch the topic. Let's talk about how awesome this game is :) Your best memories according these games. Your first time when you had seen them, your first emotions, where did you get the CD... and so on.

Hi guys, I think this question is a little bit innapropiate but I started to play NFS 4 again and I wanted to know which cars were discarded in the final version of the game. I know that Italdesign Scighera is one of them because you can find the vidwall file on the feart folder but I think there was some other cars too

Huh, i didn't think the discussion of this game was still a thing. VEG, not too sure who you are, but NFS:HS was literally my entrance into PC gaming all those years ago, and I haven't been able to get it to run on 7/8/10. It's incredibly frustrating, and I've missed my favorite game for so long. With your patch, thanks to the PCGamingWiki which led me here, I'm able to run it again. I'm currently around 40 hours of nostalgic fun in, and I'm absolutely so in love again. Just know your work has brought joy to someone's holiday season. Thank you so much!

VEG, I'd be very happy to see progress on this some day, but I can understand that the reaction of certain individuals might actually push you farther from continuing your work. Get your life on track, it's more important than some ranting idiots online. I've also donated something when I could afford it, and I'm fine with it. there is a difference between a donation and a payment and some people should propably look it up.
On a side note, perhaps you could source other people to finish your work if you feel less motivated to finish it by making your sources accessible?

I removed everything and start the procedures all over again and now there is a 1600x1200 resolution available in the game (but still not 1920x1080 as appeared in NFS3...)https://puu.sh/zcca4/a9e0386b4f.jpg

Likewise, the game fully stretched the screen to 16:9 but squeezed everything! (NFS3 fully stretched the screen to 16:9 WITHOUT squeezing everything, PERFECT!)https://puu.sh/zccag/5ab236b53b.jpg

cagneter, widescreen support is not implemented for the NFS4 yet. Unfortunately, the project is temporarily suspended now. I still want to finish this project, but at this moment my job is more important. So, don't expect that it will be done soon.

I know, and I want to play the game with original 4:3 gaming aspect ratio instead. But why did it stretch the screen automatically and make everything squeezed!? I just tried to install the game on another machine (same monitor) and everything works fine and black areas reappeared, like this:https://puu.sh/zcydb/47ab8e46d9.jpg

Really VEG? You collected $864 dollars and you suspended the project!!! What a con artist, you ripped everyone off! There is already a widescreen patch for this game anyways, so you took too damn long. Don't give me that "my job is more important" bullcrap. This is why I don't donate to anyone, because there is no binding contract and they can screw you over like this. It is 2018 VEG, when are you ACTUALLY going to work on this, instead of thinking about it?

Hello there! I really love the work you di on the old NFS titles. Unfortunately I have an issue with this one. I can play once, but once I leave the game
and try to boot it up, I get this message: "AMF=5 screen.c(563)". Do you know what can cause this error?

For those who want less pixels and a better looking frame, I recommend going into your graphic card control panel and enable anti-aliasing and the likes, this smooths the picture up and gives it a better look.

Hey, first i want to say thank you for your hard work on patching these old games, seeing these old cars on these old tracks brings back so many memories,
I have been using your NFS3 portable version for a few weeks now and its very nice, running the game on windows 98se with a 2.66ghz P4 1gb of ram aureal vortex 2 and a geforce4 ti 4400, it runs like a dream on that system, my monitor is a 5:4 ratio 1280x1024 75hz, i know the game has a 64 or 65 fps cap, but its very smooth on that system, now running the NFS4 portable version on the same machine, i cant set the resolution to 1280x1024, i think 1280x960 is the max, pretty sure that's 4:3 ratio, but the game still runs really well at that resolution and looks pretty good, I'm using dx8 thrash drivers, i cant get nglide to work on this system, it may be the card only supports DX8. Can you tell me if its possible to use these portable versions to modify with downloaded cars and tracks ?

But really VEG, you are such a manipulating liar. You should be charged with fraud and be put in jail where you belong. What a piece of filth. Go fuck yourself!

THIS IS WHAT I HAVE SAID ALL ALONG. HE DID A GREAT JOB ON NFS3 PATCH BUT WHY DIDNT HE JUST WORK ON NEED FOR SPEED 4 BECAUSE ALL THE TRACKS AND CARS FROM NFS3 ARE IN THAT GAME. HE COLLECTED A LOAD OF CASH AND THEN SUSPENDED THE PROJECT. vEG, YOU NEED TO COMPLETE THE NFS4 PATCH , JUST LIKE NEED FOR SPEED 3 AND THAT WILL RESTORE PEOPLES FAITH IN YOU. dO THE RIGHT THING AND FINISH THIS PROJECT !!!

Thank you so much for this great Patch! I have the physical copy of the game and everytime i try to install NfS 4 on Windows 10 64 bit i get an error in installation (after the installer is asking me to creating a shortcut on desktop and i clicked on OK i get nothing and the installation doesn't continue). On a german Forum i saw the solution for that Problem: Open the Task-Manager and end 3ddata. And the Install-Progress will be done. I tried to install the SP/EP and get graphical issues with nglide. I tried your Patch and it finally works and looks really good! :-) My Question is: How to use the widescreen Patch/How to Install? My english is not the very best and i tried it out often, but nothing happens. Can i use this Patch with this from VEG?

Whoever this "Paul" or "VEG Stands For Villainous Egotistical Gayfuck" is need to die in a fire for such retarded savagery, I don't know who the fuck you are, you goddamn cunt, but I swear to the brain cells of god, if you make one more braindead threat about VEG's life and state of the art projects, I swear to jesus fucking christ itself, I'll rip your eyeballs out and shove them up your asshole! I will find you and shove a rusty crowbar so far up your fucking ass that your eyeballs will pop out! Never have I seen a dickwad on this site that makes me sick to my stomach in disgust. How about you fuck off back to the hole you come from, you stupid, retarded, sick, fucked up, shit-eating, bile-drinking, trump-loving, braindead, racist, delusional, rednecked BASTARD!!!!

THIS NEEDS TO STOP. STOP FUCKING SHITTING ON VEGS LIFE AND PROJECTS AND GO TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL IF YOU ARE THAT FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD, YOU MAKE ME SICK JUST ENCOUNTERING YOU CUCKS! FUCK ALL OF YOU, AND THOSE WHO AGREE WITH THIS "PAUL" CUNT, AND GROW THE FUCK UP!! FUCK!!!!!!!

Hey VEG, just installed a 3dfx voodoo3 3000 AGP in a windows 98se pentium 3 build, I copied the drivers from your nfs3 modern patch into the nfs4 modern patch and I was able to run the game using the glide thrashdriver, can you tell me what OwnheapLimitMb=64 is, can I lower this to gain better performance on an old slow pc?

Spoken like a true 6 year old keyboard warrior. Are you sure that your mommy approves of using that type of language. It looks like you are the one that needs to grow up, you fucker. I hope you enjoy being screwed by VEG while he blatantly lies to you and takes your hard earned money. I will not fall for his tricks. He will make you a poor fuck if you keep believing his lies. So grow the fuck iup and learn how to manage your money retard!

@Paul

Thanks! It is blantantly obvious that VEG is ignoring everyone and not working on the Need For Speed High Stakes Modern Patch. NO ONE is that busy that they can't even work on it a little bit. But like I said FUCK VEG, he will never finish the widescreen patch. Just use the one that I linked in my post last time. It is 100 times better than any of the shit that VEG could shit out: https://bitbucket.org/fk/porsche-graphics-hacks/downloads/

@VEG
spoken like a true con artist, fraud, and scammer. Do you care to give us a reason why you are being a lazy ass and not working on the Need For Speed High Stakes patch? Or will we have to report you to the FBI for SCAMMING and FRAUD! I should look that up, there has to be a way to report greedy little fucks like yourself. JUST WORK ON THE FUCKING PATCH ALREADY YOU GAY FUCK!!

Oh really, you smart ass. Is it also RUDE to ignore your fan base and STEAL people's money for a bullshit project that is never going to be finished? Is it RUDE to completely ignore comments on your own blog? Is it RUDE to fucking be a smart ass cunt and be a lazy ass and not work on something you have promised to finish. Fuck off smartass!!

That's weird that I don't have any email notifications about comments where the name of the previous swearing guy is mentioned.

As I have told, I'm really sorry that now I can't do what I was going to do last year. I still want to do it, but at the moment it is not clear when I'll have enough time, because now I have a full-time job. It was my mistake that I had started that donation campaign. If you're a donator, and you can't wait anymore, I can return all your money, just write me about it. I'm OK about it. It even will make things easier for me, because now I feel guilty because I didn't what was promised in time, I don't like this feeling.

Thank fucking god. You actually replied. If you are refunding people's money then that is okay I guess. Then it wouldn't be considered fraud. I have been screwed over a lot when paying for things ahead of time. Especially on Steam with their bullshit early access shit. People just drop the game on Steam and then I get fucked. It really sucks that you don't have enough time to work on the project. But how about Weekends? I mean a lot of people have full-time jobs and still have a little time to work on projects. So you are telling me that you haven't been working on it at all for 2 fucking years? Plus the amount of money for all of the different milestones were ridiculous. You shouldn't require fucking $500 just to make a old game widescreen. Especially since a widescreen patch already exists for the game. What a fucking ripoff.

But I call bullshit on this, since on the weekends you would have free time to work on the widescreen project. If you are not going to make it at all then say so. Don't keep telling people you WANT to do it. JUST DO IT! Don't let your dreams be dreams, JUST DO IT!

I am happy that you are offering to give people their money back, as many people would just keep the money. But still you must have some free time on weekends and holidays to work on this. You can't be THAT FUCKING busy. Just don't bullshit us man, it isn't right.

Yeah right dude. I will believe it when I see it. Veg doesn't even have time to respond to his own posts on this blog. You think he has enough time to finish this bullcrap project. Just forget him, the widescreen patch has already been made for this game already: https://bitbucket.org/fk/porsche-graphics-hacks/downloads/

Also there have already been patches for this game to make it work on modern systems. These patches also give you all of the extra cars and tracks that came with the original game. Veg needs to return the money if he is going to abandon the project like this. If his life is getting in the way he needs to return the money and try this project again when he has more time. Because frankly I am surprised that he had the balls to suspend this project, since everyone was counting on him to finish it. But in my eyes this project is dead, too little and too late. It has already been done and finished, just move on and return the money. Stop giving us false hope that you are going to work on it Veg, because we all know you don't care and won't even lift a finger for this project. So pathetic! :(

@VEG Ha nice one! :D I see what you did there. Changing my name from VEG Stands For Villainous Egotistical Gayfuck to Egotistical. It won't work, everyone knows what your name stands for now. LOL! But seriously work on the project!!!! Or at least give us an update, because this is ridiculous!! :(

Egotistical, since this moment, every insulting message will be deleted. Please use a proper name and stop insulting me.

Randy Lahey, unfortunately, I need to work full-time on it to have noticeable results. I spent some time on the patching projects since I found a job, but unfortunately there is nothing to share at this moment. I think to ask for an unpaid "vacation" for a few months when my current project at work is finished (it seems that it will long for maybe another half of a year). I hope, I'll have something new to share then.

NfS is still not switching inactive... and as user its not possible to move the cursor on desktop

Both NFS3 and NFS4 are capturing the mouse cursor completely, so you can't just move the cursor out of the window, you should force the window to lose focus before. For example, you can use Windows key for this purpose.

To fix this issue, the game requires to rewrite really huge part of code. It is on the list of things which I'd like to do one day, but the schedule is vague.

Thanks VEG! you rock! I downloaded a year ago and it is absolutely amazing that I can play these games on modern OS and have them run from usb!!! take them anywhere!
Thanks to you I can relive my childhood and dust off my old sidewinder wheel and have a blast! Also got to split screen with my lil bro just like the old days.

Hi VEG, big thanks for your work on this patch. I'm finally able to replay one of my favorite NFS on current hardware (untill now I got old WinXP machine that still had problems running NFS4). And I don't care if it has "modern" features like widescreen or increased resolution support. I'm satisfied with 4:3 @1024x768. Just like the old times!

Some people should chill the f**k down here. If the guy say he has no time for side projects currently, just deal with it. He's not your slave. And if there are other patches that work just get them and stop complaining. It's not that easy reverse engineer low level assembly code.

Hi Veg, game crashes on every setting besides nglide, is there any way to get d3d working on win8 or is nglide the best we're gonna get, I also tried doing the widescreen patch somebody chucked up on here but yeah that just kills the game too, ps, cheers for your help, nobody else got this game running on modern systems, who cares if he took donations to do it, he helped the gaming community play a legendary game again, cheers bro.

Jamie Lennon, it crashes or provides some understandable error message? Probably, the issue is lack of 16-bit video modes on newer Windows. The latest beta of the NFS3 Modern Patch tries to resolve it (it allows to use 32-bit mode for menu). Unfortunately, it wasn't done for NFS4.

I remember playing Need for Speed High Stakes when I was a kid on an old Windows 98 computer since I first got it as a Christmas present in the year 2003. I was so amazed by the improvements from the older Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit around the same late 90s time period. My brother had borrowed my copy of Need for Speed High Stakes so that he could try it out, and we both liked it, even my Mom played Need for Speed High Stakes with him in the Hot Pursuit mode using a dual steering wheel setting. Unbelievable!

Nowadays, I find it tricky to run High Stakes under 64-bit editions of Windows 10, even on my custom built High Performance PC, but with the help of your modern patch, I got it working again, and now I can relive the racing action that Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit missed! The setup I have of your NFS4 Modern Patch on my Windows 10 PC includes setting the renderer to dgVoodoo for a better picture quality, and using Creative Alchemy (because I have a Sound Blaster Z sound card installed) to restore the DirectSound3D and EAX audio effects. The DS3D/EAX option in the audio menu is the one that my brother used because he used to own a Sound Blaster Live! Value sound card for his Windows 98 gaming build.

Anyways, the Need for Speed High Stakes Modern Patch is good enough to get it going under Windows 10! There are some slight lockups when using the multicore setting, but otherwise, it runs great!

Nfs3 Patch worked perfectly for me on modern system :D
Only thing i didnt try was video but vidwall was ok and everything else seemed fine
even my usb to ps1/ps2 controller worked fine to be mapped and played :D

Laiter i might try the nfs4 patch
is there enny specific things i shudn`t change in menu like trippel buffer etc
or specific stuff to enable like use nglide aswell or?

OH AND:
By the way, don't worry about hating.
That means you've done things they haven't done. and they are jealous of you.
So as i see it, you have gotten money as donation, so people can't really claim money back since it's a donation.
Nomather the frustration it mgith eb for thoes that has donated.
it will be the same as donate to someone who begs for money for food if he/she is using it on alcohol, Drug/substance or actual food is up to him/her self.
:)
so do what you do and what you feel needs to be done like real life work family health etc,

ps i do hope you can get this nfs4 patch in same condition like nfs3 patch, althoe i dont know about the nfs4 patch yett since i need to try it hehe.

ps sorry for my bad english am from norway and i have dyslexia
Best Regards :D

also NFS3 and NFS4 is the proper nfs games/root`s of NFS i kind of including nfs2 and nfs1 aswell thoe :)

Nfs4 worked perfectly for me on modern system, only i had to change was my input but it worked fine like it did with nfs3 like i mention abow and grapic`s settings i only changed the scenery(i think) to Full instead of far :D

sure it`s not 100% wide screen but the game was orginally made for 4:3 so run it in 1024*768 and turn the widescreen of and the dial`s + map etc will be correctly and not sure if i sett to wide or Narrow but one of thoes too helped, and it worked fine with the cheats file you need in savedata folder.
So thank you so mutch and i will donate(when i have money/cash) for the work that it works for me on this system since win10 has been more and more trouble to run old games.

maby a jobb you can do in spare time is :
make a extra file/arcive For NFS3 with bonus/Downloade official cars that was released like that indy500 corvette(or what it was named) etc and maby a good low poly&low texture(so that it fits the era of the game) version of the nasca c2 that only orginally was on ps1 version maby other cars too(i think it was 2 cars excluding the police and traffic cars).

And same for NFS4 i remember that 360modena or 360 spider whas there and also Nissan Skyline R34, Maby holden or Opel and Ford i think :)
if not maby i can help you collect them in to a neat package for us people`s and you can add it here as extra downloade :D

Hey VEG, truly appreciate the hard work you put into updating NFS III and High Stakes for modern systems. I gotta say, it would be a dream come true for myself, and I'm sure many others, to play High Stakes especially, in widescreen resolution. Hope you can complete it someday, and I look forward to it ! :)
Thank you !

I LOVE YOUR MODERN PATCHES! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
I have been able to play split screen with my lil brother just like we did back in the day.
Great games have so many great memories playing them! so many games are unable to be played now thank you for carrying these into the next era!

I have serious problem with installation NFS4 on Windows 10 (Pro 64 bit). When I insert ISO game by Daemon Tools then nothing happen, and I see 'Setup.exe' is on list in Task Manager - i tried manually on disc by doubleclicking on 'Setup.exe' but still the same. Similar situation is with other ISO game "4x4Evo 2".
That is information from Event Viewer:The program or function \ ?? \ F: \ setup \ english \ setup.exe cannot be started or the program or function is not working because of incompatibility with 64-bit versions of Windows. Contact the software vendor to find out if a version compatible with 64-bit Windows systems is available.

Trying in compatibility mode - no effects.

I tried other method by Xelerate:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYWUOXWrAQI
There's no installation needed, game is working, but graphics in-game are supported by software renderer and looks poor and pixelated. There's not D3D Device to change graphics in game folder, there's not possible to install Modern Patch or NFS_HS_EP too bec. formally game is not installed.

Maybe you have any ideas how to make it work, please? :((( I have no ideas, but I'm trying to be stubborn to solve problem... and play! :P

No matter what I do, I keep getting "Thrash driver not found". Do I need to go to Thrash driver university for 4 years to understand how to get this to work? Goddamn, write some instructions or do a dir *.* /s>howtoconfigurethrash.txt so we can see where all the files go! >:(